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Hi {{first_name|everyone}},

In this issue:

  • 🤝 In Partnership: Get more context into every prompt

  • 🤿Deep Dive: PettiChat's AI Collar promises to translate pet emotions

  • 🎁Referral Rewards: Earn perks by inviting friends

  • 🤝Supported by: Private credit designed for individual investors

  • 🤿Deep Dive: Starbucks scraps its AI inventory tool after 9 months

  • ⚒Tool Snapshots: Tools for AI, no-code, and productivity

  • 🖼AI Art: Examples of great and trending AI art

🤝IN PARTNERSHIP WITH WISPR FLOW

10x the context. Half the time.

Speak your prompts into ChatGPT or Claude and get detailed, paste-ready input that actually gives you useful output. Wispr Flow captures what you'd cut when typing. Free on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.

🤿 DEEP DIVE

A Hangzhou Startup Hit 10,000 Preorders Claiming Its AI Collar Can Read Pet's Emotions

Intelligence: A Hangzhou startup called Meng Xiaoyi launched PettiChat, an AI collar that claims to translate pet sounds into human phrases with 94.6% emotion recognition accuracy, racking up over 10,000 preorders within days.

  • The collar weighs just 27 grams, connects to a phone app, and uses Alibaba's Qwen model to turn barks and meows into short sentences covering states like hunger, fear, and anxiety.

  • The 94.6% accuracy claim has not been backed by independent studies or third-party testing, which makes it hard to know how well it holds up in a real home versus a controlled environment.

  • Animal behavior experts point out that pets communicate through body language, posture, and context just as much as sound, meaning a collar focused on audio alone could easily miss the full picture.

  • At 799 yuan ($118), buyers are paying for interpretation not just tracking, so if the translations feel generic over time, the novelty could wear off fast.

  • PettiChat sits at the crossroads of pet care, wearables, and consumer AI in a market with over 126 million urban cats and dogs in China alone, making the commercial opportunity very real if the product can back up its promise.

🎁REFERRAL REWARDS

If TIW has been useful, invite one friend or coworker who’d actually use AI/automation at work.

  • 1 referral → get the TIW No-Code Workflows PDF (25 plug-and-play workflows)

  • 10 referrals → get a full course free (your choice)

Your referral link: {{rp_refer_url}}

Tip: send it to a friend who’s AI-curious, a coworker who wants to move faster, or anyone trying to automate repetitive tasks.

🤝 SUPPORTED BY PERCENT

$20.8B in Redemption Requests. Percent Was Issuing Deals and Paying on Schedule.

Those requests came from non-traded BDC investors in Q1 2026, and most got back roughly half of what they asked for. Moody's U.S. BDC sector outlook: Negative.

On Percent's marketplace that same quarter: new issuances, scheduled payments, 0.44% lifetime net loss rate on asset-based deals since inception.† The difference is structural: concentrated corporate loans with redemption windows that close at manager discretion vs. asset-based finance with 6–24 month deal terms. 14.6% net ABS returns LTM after losses (3/31/26).† Starting at $500.

Alternative investments are speculative. No assurance can be given that investors will receive a return of their capital. †Past performance is not indicative of future results. Terms apply.

🤿 DEEP DIVE

Starbucks Retires Its AI Inventory Tool After It Struggled to Identify Basic Products on Shelves

Intelligence: Starbucks is retiring its AI-powered inventory counting tool from all North American stores after just nine months, following persistent errors that made the system unreliable in real store conditions.

  • The tool, built by Seattle-based NomadGo, used LiDAR sensors and tablet cameras to automatically count syrups, milks, and other shelf items, replacing manual tallying by staff.

  • It struggled with basic accuracy, regularly mixing up similar products like different milk varieties and missing items sitting in plain sight on shelves.

  • Starbucks framed the pullback as a move toward consistency across stores, but internal feedback from employees was more direct, with staff calling the execution difficult despite appreciating the idea behind it.

  • Inventory gaps have been a recurring headache for Starbucks leadership for years, and this tool was meant to be a centerpiece of CEO Brian Niccol's "Back to Starbucks" turnaround plan.

  • The company says it is shifting to daily restocking cycles and supply chain improvements, with AI tools for drink sequencing and barista support still part of the broader tech push.

⚒ TOOL SNAPSHOTS

Futuristic tools within AI, no-code, and productivity

  • 🎨 Stitch 3.0 by Google - Turn prompts into editable app and web UI designs instantly.

  • 🖥️ Freu AI - Automate desktop workflows across apps using plain language.

  • 🧠 Memdex - Turn past AI chats into searchable memory you can reuse.

  • 🎬 Runway Agent - Create finished videos from a simple creative brief.

  • ⚡ Command A+ - Run powerful enterprise AI agents faster and more efficiently.

🖼 AI ART

Examples of great and trending AI art

Images by Infamous_Bother_1996

ℹ️ ABOUT US

The Intelligent Worker helps you to be more productive at work with AI, automation, no-code, and other technologies.

We like real, practical, and tangible use-cases and hate hand-wavy, theoretical, and abstract concepts that don’t drive real-world outcomes.

Our mission is to empower individuals, boost their productivity, and future-proof their careers.

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